Johannesburg city under ransomware attack, again

By Chandu Gopalakrishnan for SC Media
Friday, October 25, 2019

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City Power, one of the largest power suppliers in Johannesburg, faced a ransomware infection that lead to a blackout on 25 July. Customers could not load prepaid electricity on the payday of the month.

Cities and municipalities are easy targets for cyber-criminals as they usually lack the budget and skills to set up sufficient security and monitoring, commented Ilia Kolochenko, CEO of ImmuniWeb.

"Worse, they have critical and/or sensitive IT systems that generate incalculable losses if unavailable. Payments in bitcoins largely exacerbate the situation by making attacks virtually untraceable and non-investigable," he said.

Hundreds of municipalities in the US have been hit by ransomware this year, leading to severe disruptions in civic services. Most of them have opted to pay the ransom. Read Full Article